Federal 100: Paul E. Petersen

Paul Petersen created the Tennessee Countermeasure Response Network, an IT system for managing medical emergencies. In 2010, it registered, credentialed and distributed H1N1 flu countermeasures to 132 hospitals and 374 pharmacies in Tennessee.

The Web-based system can be shared by a variety of agencies and used in any browser-based format, making it accessible from smart phones, tablet PCs, netbooks and other portable devices. It can also operate in a nonconnected caching mode when Internet access is not available.

Although emergency patient and evacuee tracking falls outside the purview of state Strategic National Stockpile coordinators, Petersen decided to add that capability to his system. His leadership and work in that area is paving the way for other federal, state and local emergency managers to develop similar systems.

FCW investigated efforts by the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs to improve a joint data repository on military and veteran suicides. Something as impersonal and mundane as incomplete datasets could be exacerbating a national tragedy.